Oh, to be Pure Again

ArtsATL Perhaps what is most remarkable about Oh, To Be Pure Again is the way it creates equal space for both rage and hope. The characters are increasingly frustrated with the shame that is constantly being weaponized against them, and that rage starts to boil over by the end, but Rockwell insists that there is still room to be optimistic. Perhaps by redefining their relationships to their own bodies, these women may redefine their relationships with religion as well.

Broadway World It’s clear that there was one thing top of mind as Kira Rockwell wrote this play - sex. The power, the intimacy, the consequences of it, and how specific circumstances of the Evangelical Christian Church’s purity culture can affect one’s relationship with it. For the women and girls in this show, sex, and sexual desire as a whole, is an evil that must be exorcised - until they decide it’s not. Until they finally stand up and say “I am allowed to feel this, my body is my own.” And what an orgasmic relief it is once they do.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution It’s likely Atlanta audiences haven’t heard the last from the transplanted Rockwell.